Mike Tenay & Don West Belong In The Conversation Of Wrestling's Greatest Broadcast Teams

Mike Tenay’s most famous work probably remains, to this day, his efforts for WCW during the Monday Night War. On Nitro, Tenay at times filled the play-by-play man role, but, as Eric Bischoff has discussed on his podcast, The Professor was at his best on color commentary where he could use his expansive wrestling knowledge to educate the viewer.

Tenay was able to put the best of his skills on both color commentary and play-by-play to use for Impact Wrestling. In this environment, he was not as often tasked with fighting for sound bytes in a three or four-man team, nor compelled to forego technicality in favor of selling the main event storyline constantly as he often was in WCW. By contrast, the early days of Impact saw the company distinguish itself with a combination of veteran talent who had long histories in wrestling, international talents a US audience wasn’t as familiar with, and technically savvy high flyers from the X-Division with complex move sets.

Each of these “types” played directly to Tenay’s strengths as he was uniquely equipped to teach fans about wrestling history and international affairs, as well as call action on the fly without having to fudge the names of any of the moves or holds. With an added credibility boost from fans who knew him from WCW, Tenay emerged as the man with all the answers in the early days of Impact.

Don West Was A Truly Unique Wrestling Broadcaster

Whereas Mike Tenay’s success as a broadcast was all about his ethos as a wrestling insider and expert, Don West represented a largely opposite dynamic. He was an experienced wrestling broadcast voice, nor had he worked in the business, or even been known to be that hardcore of a fan. By contrast he was the everyman—relatable to a lot of viewers, but also distinguished by his sheer energy and enthusiasm.

Indeed, West’s pedigree pre-Impact Wrestling was all about sales, and he brought precisely that skillset of being able to connect with everyday people and get them as excited as he was from the broadcast table.

Mike Tenay And Don West’s Unconventional Chemistry

There was every possibility that Mike Tenay and Don West broadcast partnership would be a trainwreck as they were just too different from one another, and there was no guarantee either of them would really click with the fan base for a start up wrestling promotion. However, Tenay and West took flight as The Professor and his student—or perhaps more aptly, the distinguished faculty member and high-octane residential advisor--who combined to offer fans an ideal mix of education and accessibility, or information and electricity.

Moreover, Tenay and West formed a real sense that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts as these two “misfit toys” built upon each other’s strengths and became something special on account of what they brought out in each other and the rapport they built on a pair of live mics.

Their Role In Establishing TNA/Impact

Impact Wrestling’s challenge from the onset was carving its own niche in the world of professional wrestling. It was never all that realistic that they’d truly compete with WWE for its vast resources, long history, and loyal fan base. Impact could be an alternative, though.

The fact of the matter is that neither Mike Tenay, nor Don West represented skills or styles that would have ever meshed with WWE for very long. By contrast, their unique presentation befitted the genuinely different product Impact was trying to put forth, complete with its emphasis on the fast-moving X-Division and ahead-of-its-time push to feature women’s wrestling. Tenay and west were a deceptively important piece of that early puzzle, lending the product its own distinct voices that the fledgling promotion could build around.

Impact Wrestling has been around now for two decades and has reinvented its roster and aesthetic multiple times. One of the great elements of the organization’s Hall of Fame is that it has been mostly steady in keeping a clear focus on the company’s own history—not trying to tap into broader, ill-defined swathes of wrestling overall, nor get buzz by inducing celebrities like WWE. The celebration of Mike Tenay and Don West via their induction feels just right in this vein, commemorating the invaluable contributions of an underrated broadcast team at the heart of the promotion’s early successes.